1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a remote control system and method for portable terminals, and in particular, to a remote control system and method in which portable terminals can be remotely accessed and controlled by providing a remote control management server so that a remote control command is relayed between the portable terminals.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the recent proliferation of portable terminals, a mobile phone providing wireless voice call and data exchange is beginning to be regarded as personal necessity. Conventional portable terminals have generally provided only wireless calls. However, along with technical advances and introduction of the wireless Internet, portable terminals are now used for many purposes in addition to telephone calls or schedule management. For example, images can be captured by using a digital camera included in a portable terminal. Further, the portable terminal provides a variety of functions such as viewing a satellite broadcasting program, games and Web surfing using the wireless Internet.
A typical portable terminal is used to receive services by accessing a server. These days, however, various contents can be generated and stored by the use of a portable terminal, and a large data size can be handled by a large capacity storage device included in the portable terminal. Moreover, the portable terminal is emerging as a tool for providing services with the growing processing capability and network speed.
A large amount of data stored in the portable terminal cannot be utilized when the portable terminal is lost or when a user does not carry it. This problem can be easily addressed using a remote control method in which a portable terminal can be remotely accessed and controlled.
For example, remote control is used when one Personal Computer (PC) (i.e., control PC) accesses another PC (i.e., target PC) operating under the same Operation System (OS). By performing the remote control between PCs, the control PC can access the target PC and thus can see a screen of the target PC and directly execute programs stored in the target PC. In addition, the control PC can use peripheral devices of the target PC. Further, communication can be achieved between peripheral devices of the control PC and those of the target PC. This is possible because the peripheral devices of either the control PC or the target PC are implemented conforming to several standards, and thus have relatively good hardware compatibility. However, the remote control between the PCs is valid only when the PCs operate under the same OS and with a high-speed network bandwidth.
Since a User Interface (UI) is different among portable terminal manufacturers, it is difficult to meet the requirement that the PCs have to operate under the same OS. Further, even if that requirement is met, a specific data transfer rule has to be defined to share data between the PCs.
Therefore, there is a demand for a remote control system and method for providing remote control to not only homogeneous portable terminals but also heterogeneous portable terminals.